Toy Story Racer is a spin-off game based on the Toy Story movies. In it, you choose from your favorite characters (although you only get four to start with) as the single player takes the form of a collect-a-thon: each character has a tower of challenges, ranging from races, smash battles, and challenges like collecting clown squeeze toys, breaking targets, and even trying to beat a lap time. Each challenge completed awards a green army man, which with the right amount, will unlock more challenges, with some even unlocking new racers.
For the roster of racers, you start with Woody, Buzz, Bo Peep, and RC. Unlockable racers include major characters like Rex and Mr. Potato Head as well as minor ones like Rocky Gibrator and Lenny. Sadly, despite the game releasing two years after the second movie was released, no characters introduced in that film are playable (no Jessie, no Bullseye, not even Zurg, although the latter makes a cameo as a snowman in one of the tracks).
As for gameplay, it's okay, but there are some flaws. The controls are simple, however, the turning can be tight if you hold the left or right directional button too long, which can often result in your character turning to the reverse direction. The game's tracks have a lot of variety, with some based on setting from the two films (like Pizza Planet and parts of Sid's house) as well as areas not seen in the movies (like a skate park, a mall, and one battle arena being a bowling alley). They are nice, and some tracks even have multiple paths and shortcuts that can be used to get ahead of the competition. Also, there are weapon boxes that can be picked up with different weapons to use, and red batteries are in certain points acting like speed boosts.
However, despite the Toy Story license, this game can get hard for the films' target audience. Some of the collection challenges have the clowns spread out in areas that are either hard to get to because of the lighting or require perfect timing to get all five due to a short time limit. Another problem comes from the Target Challenges, as sometimes, the weapons will hit the target, but it will register as not hitting it. Also, expect the AI to get aggressive as you complete challenges, as they will know of the alternate paths and even start using shortcuts to steal first place from your grasp. Also, I have been in many instances where I bumped into a wall, and tried to turn, only to be stuck as the other racers. This is an okay racing game, but is flawed and can get a little too hard for the target audience.
For the roster of racers, you start with Woody, Buzz, Bo Peep, and RC. Unlockable racers include major characters like Rex and Mr. Potato Head as well as minor ones like Rocky Gibrator and Lenny. Sadly, despite the game releasing two years after the second movie was released, no characters introduced in that film are playable (no Jessie, no Bullseye, not even Zurg, although the latter makes a cameo as a snowman in one of the tracks).
As for gameplay, it's okay, but there are some flaws. The controls are simple, however, the turning can be tight if you hold the left or right directional button too long, which can often result in your character turning to the reverse direction. The game's tracks have a lot of variety, with some based on setting from the two films (like Pizza Planet and parts of Sid's house) as well as areas not seen in the movies (like a skate park, a mall, and one battle arena being a bowling alley). They are nice, and some tracks even have multiple paths and shortcuts that can be used to get ahead of the competition. Also, there are weapon boxes that can be picked up with different weapons to use, and red batteries are in certain points acting like speed boosts.
However, despite the Toy Story license, this game can get hard for the films' target audience. Some of the collection challenges have the clowns spread out in areas that are either hard to get to because of the lighting or require perfect timing to get all five due to a short time limit. Another problem comes from the Target Challenges, as sometimes, the weapons will hit the target, but it will register as not hitting it. Also, expect the AI to get aggressive as you complete challenges, as they will know of the alternate paths and even start using shortcuts to steal first place from your grasp. Also, I have been in many instances where I bumped into a wall, and tried to turn, only to be stuck as the other racers. This is an okay racing game, but is flawed and can get a little too hard for the target audience.
